One of the key things for cars is PR, IE tests, reviews, and getting the hacks on your side. Motor shows, and of course the rallying pedigree gets them more TV, and media attention than any advert will, especially WINNING . Rally works especially well for them, as at the heart of the Subaru product offer is AWD, which is marketed as a safety aspect, essential to good road holding, something that could not be more well communicated than sending a car at break neck speed throuh a forest on gravel roads.

Buying a car is one of the most involving consumer decisions someone will make, whilst TV press advertising, helps build brand awareness / style / personality - brand recall etc etc, and reminds people of it's exsistance, people don't walk stright out and buy one. They normally read lots of mags, search the net, test stuff, talk to friends, and spend quite some time before they decide to part with their cash or sign on the dotted line of credit agreements etc etc.

Again I am not sure of this, but I would imagine in terms of market share Subaru are fairly small in the grand scheme of things here in the UK, compared with the big mass manufacturers, in someways a niche market for the well informed. So the marketing people have to decide whether advertising is a cost effective way of communicating with those people. Which in this country i would imagine not, it's very expensive to have national advertising campaings, and if it's mostly falling on deaf ears may well not be worth it for them. Especially seems high advertising costs are then passed onto the consumer in higher prices, think Nike, think BMW and all the other top brands who spend masses on advertising and communications.

By the looks of the Subaru website I would imagine their marketing bbudgets here in the UK are fairly small, that website by the way, is by far the worst car manuf. website i have ever been on bless em. Bet yet look at the near religious following that Imprezza's have based on a very good product, which is dervived from it's rallying heritage. Plus they sound lovlely dont' they.

TVR is another brand of cars, that (IMO) make fabulous cars, and is known by one and all, but spends NO, and I mean NO money on advertising, just the usual car shows, and of course motorsport.

Yeah but my dad is in the market for a car, considering Merc, Bmw, Honda, VW, and Subaru Foresta (thanks to me). Car companies have top of the line models, that often are cutting edge but make no money or at least not much, but this makes people feel like they're buying into that dream.

Example: you think Ford made more money from the Cosworth than the average family Seira? Ofcourse not, but every family man that bought a normal one cause they had kids and a morgage, would of bought a cossy if they had the money. Wrx is not where they make the money the mass sales of the lower models is where the cash is.

And frankly if you saw an advert for an Impreza STI would it of swayed your decision to buy? No. Youre the saavy motoring enthusiast, you make your decision based on knowledge and saavy. Advertising to you lot would be a waste of money. Do you see any ad's for Evo's?